A third party sponsor is any organization or person who contributes towards tuition payments in addition to the Primary Guardian. Examples of third party sponsors include government agencies, scholarship funds, or perhaps a secondary person who 'shares' the tuition payments on a regular basis such as in a divorce situation.
Some schools choose to setup a Third Party Sponsor folder for the agency responsible for their state Food Program Reimbursement. You may want to do this if you are planning on using the SchoolLeader USDA Meal Management feature.
If a grandparent regularly pays for the tuition of their grandchild, then they are not considered a third party sponsor. In this case, the grandparent will be considered the Primary Guardian, or the person financially responsible for the account.
If you do NOT have a need to track Third Party Sponsors, then you can bypass this topic.
To access the Third Party Sponsor Folder, click on School, then Edit Third Party Sponsor Folders, or click the Third Party Sponsor icon on the top tool bar.
When you first bring up the Third Party Sponsor Folder, it will automatically display the COVER information for all Active Third Party Sponsors. If you need to display information about another category of sponsors, then simply click on the down arrow next to 'active third party sponsors', and select the category of sponsors you'd like to display. SchoolLeader refers to this as a folder filter, and is used to minimize the amount of data that is to be displayed in the 'VIEW" list.
The folder filters for the Third Party Sponsors are:
All Third Party Sponsors - every third party sponsor entered into SchoolLeader will be displayed under 'View TPS'
Active Third Party Sponsors - those sponsors who currently have credit transfers and students assigned to them
In-Active Third Party Sponsors - those sponsors who no longer have credit transfers and students assigned to them
Once you select the filter, then click on the down arrow next to View TPS, and the appropriate sponsors will be displayed. Remember that you can also start typing in the sponsor's name, and SchoolLeader will locate that sponsor for you. The 'View TPS' and 'folder filter' are accessible on every Third Party Folder Tab.
Like all SchoolLeader folders, the Third Party Sponsor Folder organizes and displays data within 'tabs' accessible from the bottom of the Third Party Sponsor Folder. By clicking on a tab, you will gain access to specific information for the selected sponsor. The Third Party Folder tabs are:
This is the primary tab for the Third Party Sponsor Folder. It allows you to add, modify or delete Third Party Sponsors' information.
To add a new Third Party Sponsor, click on NEW THIRD PARTY SPONSOR. Your blinking cursor will be positioned at the 'ORGANIZATION/AGENCY NAME'. Start entering your data.
Enter the Third Party Sponsor's Name. This name will be displayed in reports and referenced within SchoolLeader. The Third Party Sponsor can be a government agency, scholarship fund, a divorced parent, etc.
Identifies the assigned ID number for this Third Party Sponsor. IDs are assigned automatically by SchoolLeader and cannot be changed.
Enter the mailing address information. This address is used when mailing invoices.
Enter the name and contact information for the individual who represents the Third Party Sponsor Organization. This may be an account manager or social worker at the agency, or it may be the person responsible for receiving the invoice. SchoolLeader requires a primary contact name, since this contact is considered to be a special type of Primary Guardian.
If you are using the third party sponsor folder to split payments between 2 parents (a divorce situation), then enter one of the parent's information here. The other parent will be entered directly into the Student Folder, which is discussed in a later chapter.
Below the contact information is that checkbox that allows you to permanently suppress late payment fees for this third party sponsor. Since government agencies typically pay in arrears, you should check this box so that SchoolLeader does NOT apply late payment fees to this third party sponsor.
If you are using the third party sponsor folder to split payments between 2 parents (a divorce situation), then you should leave this box 'unchecked' so that a parent will be charged late payment fees if their payment is overdue.
Once you are finished entering data click on the SAVE button. If you have additional Third Party Sponsors to define, click on NEW THIRD PARTY SPONSOR, and repeat this process.
NOTE: The other Third Party Sponsor Folder tabs are used for operational purposes. During the initial setup of your data, you only need to define this COVER tab information.
This tab provides you with view of the balance at a Sponsored family level. This can be extremely useful if the Sponsor is a government agency responsible for many students. Knowing the total amount owed you by this sponsor may not be enough. Sometimes you may want to answer the question; How much does this Sponsor owe me for a particular family? This tab gives you that answer.
Press this button to produce a printout of the grid contents -- exactly as displayed. Note: Even the column spacing is duplicated on the printout, therefore, you may need to shrink down the window size before printing if it doesn't fit the width of your paper.
You can jump directly to a Guardian's folder by clicking on the desired row, and then clicking this button.
The Payment Account Tab allows you to manage the charges, credits and payments for the selected third party sponsor. Many of the charges that appear in this window are a result of a credit transfer that happened between the primary guardian's account and this third party sponsor.
To recap how the third party billing operates:
full tuition charges are posted to the primary guardian account, either by the recurring charge process, or by attendance based billing
for those primary guardians who are entitled to third party sponsor payments/credits, the third party portion of the tuition is automatically transferred from the primary guardian's payment account, and into the third party sponsor's payment account (if set up to do so)
the primary guardian is responsible for paying the difference between the full tuition and the portion paid by the third party sponsor, often referred to as the co-pay.
For example, a student's regular tuition is $125/week. A third party sponsor pays for $105 of this $125 tuition. The primary guardian is responsible for a tuition payment $20/week.
The Payment Account tab lists all charges, credits and payments associated with the selected third party sponsor, for the selected accounting period. The example above shows you the details that made up the $115 balance associated with Anna Collings from the Balance Summary tab in the last section above. If there were multiple students billed for this sponsor, you would see all their charges as well with a total due for the entire Sponsor.
You can "filter" the view to only include a particular sponsored family using the dropdown box just above -- and to the right -- of the details grid. In this example it displays "Show All Primary Guardians"
The Payment Account tab can be broken into 4 sections for ease of discussion:
Accounting action buttons along the top third of the window allow you to post manual transactions, change the view of activity displayed, and navigate through different accounting periods.
Each button's function is discussed in detail later in this chapter.
Accounting Period navigation buttons appear below the action buttons:
When you first click on the Payment Account Tab, you will be brought to the current accounting period data for all Primary Guardians. In this example, data is displayed for accounting period 3 in 2006, which starts 1/15/2006 and ends 1/21/2006.
To the left of the accounting period dates
are the accounting period control buttons. These
buttons allow you to scroll through accounting periods, either backwards
or forwards. The
circle button always brings you to the current accounting period.
The left arrow with the line brings you to the first
SchoolLeader accounting period for the current
fiscal year. Clicking twice on the left arrow with the line brings
you to the first accounting period defined in your fiscal calendar.
The right arrow with the line brings you to the last
SchoolLeader accounting period for the current
fiscal year. Clicking twice on the right arrow with the line brings
you to the last accounting period defined in your fiscal calendar.
The left arrow without the line moves backwards through closed accounting
period.
The right arrow without the line moves forward to the next (future) accounting
period
The "Subsidy Guardian" dropdown allows you to further control what is displayed in the activity grid. If you want to view charges to this Third Party Sponsor associated with a particular family, select their name from the dropdown list.
The "Active Only" checkbox allows you to ignore charges associated with families that are not active
Accounting Data for the selected accounting period:
Accounting transactions are displayed for the selected accounting period in activity date order. You can double click on any transaction to see more details regarding that transaction.
Only transactions posted in the currently open accounting period (or the next period) can be modified and deleted. This restriction ensures integrity of your data. Transactions posted in prior periods cannot be changed but you can offset their effect by posting adjustments in the current period.
Accounting Period Totals and Account Totals are displayed towards the bottom of the window:
The breakdown of these totals is as follows:
Current Available - Pre-Payments: This is the total amount of pre-payment dollars currently available for this sponsor. A pre-payment occurs when a sponsor pays more than what is due. Any pre-payments represented here are a result of over payments made in prior accounting periods, or the current accounting period. This amount can be refunded or moved to a security deposit account.
Current Available - Escrow: This is the dollar amount currently available in escrow or as a security deposit.
Display Period Balances - Bal Fwd: The Balance Forward total represents any balances that been brought forward from prior accounting periods. In other words, this sponsor has outstanding charges or credits. The details of the balance forward transactions can be found above in the accounting data.
Display Period Balances - Charges: The total of all new charges for the selected accounting period are displayed here. If you scroll through accounting periods, this number will change based on the charges posted for that selected accounting period. This is particularly useful for guardians who want to know what their charges were in a prior period (e.g. 3 weeks ago).
Display Period Balances - Credits: The total of all payments and credits for the selected accounting period are displayed here. If you scroll through accounting periods, this number will change based on the credits and payment posted for that selected accounting period. This is particularly useful for guardians who want to know what their credits were in a prior period (e.g. 3 weeks ago).
Display Period Balances - Balance: The balance due for the selected period. This will be a sum of the Balance Forward, Period Charges and Period Credits/Payments.
Current Period - Advance Charges: Advance charges are displayed for the next accounting period. Some schools post their next accounting period charges while the current period is still open. The way that SchoolLeader handles the payments for advanced charges is discussed in detail in Setting Up Accounting Rules Advance Charge Rules.
Current Period - Current Balance: The current balance including past, present and advance charges/credits.
Current Period - Amount Due: The amount that is due by the sponsor after all things are considered..
The features and functions on this tab are primarily identical to the Payment Account Tab on the Guardian Folder, and the Student Folder.
These buttons allow you to post manual transactions against the sponsor's accounting data. Manual transactions can only be posted in the CURRENT or NEXT accounting period.
Posting a manual transaction is a very common accounting function. Since you are restricted from deleting or modifying transactions from closed accounting periods, SchoolLeader allows you to post manual transactions to correct a sponsor's accounting information. Manual transactions are often used for prorating tuition amounts, applying one time discounts, and for correcting human accounting errors.
A credit is NOT a payment. If you need to post a payment, then click on the PAYMENT button.
To learn more about posting a transaction, go to the Posting a Manual A/R Transaction section
SchoolLeader always accepts payments, whether or not there are charges posted to an account. However, payments can only be posted to the current accounting period.
To learn more about posting a payment, go to the Receiving a Payment section in the Accounts Receivable chapter.
The modify button is displays the same Post Transaction window as the Posting button. However, this button is used to modify an existing transaction highlighted in the grid. Note: Double clicking on a transaction also accomplishes the same thing. It allows you to modify the transaction. You cannot modify transactions in closed accounting periods.
To learn more about posting a transaction, go to the Posting a Manual A/R Transaction section
The REMOVE button allows authorized personnel to VOID or DELETE a selected transaction. The difference between a VOID and a DELETE is that a void leaves an audit trail in the sponsor's account, whereby a delete completely removes the transaction without an audit trail in the folder. SchoolLeader can still create an audit trail for transaction deletions if you have 'turned on' the event monitoring options discussed in the DB-Support section Event Monitoring Options.
To void a transaction in the current or next accounting period:
click on the transaction
click on VOID
you may receive a message that your security clearance allows deletion...do you want to delete this transaction. Click on YES to delete, or NO to void.
The refund button is used to refund any pre-payment or credit balance that exist in the account. A pre-payment is an overpayment of money that SchoolLeader will keep aside to offset future charges. A Pre-payment or credit must exist for the refund button to be activated.
To issue a refund, click on the REFUND button. The current credit balance amount will be displayed as the refund amount. Change the amount if necessary and click on OK to issue the refund. Press Cancel to exit and abort the refund. SchoolLeader does not create the refund check, but it does update your A/R subledger noting that the refund was given.
The escrow button is used to move money from pre-payment dollars to the escrow account. It is very unlikely that a third party will have a security deposit associated with the account. If you do have such a need, refer to the Student Folder Payment Account Tab for details on how to use the escrow function. The escrow functionality works the same way in the third party sponsor folder as it does in the student folder, and the guardian folder.
At times, a sponsor's account may become delinquent and you have determined that you will not be able to collect the outstanding balance. You have the option to write-off the outstanding balance for the entire account, or a specific subsidized family.
To do so, first, choose either "Show All Primary Guardians" or select a specific family from the Subsidy Guardian dropdown box. Next, click on the WRITE OFF button. You will receive a prompt to write off the existing balance. Click YES to write off the balance, click NO to cancel the write off.
The payment register is a centralized location of handling all of the sponsor's payments. Once a payment is received in SchoolLeader, that payment becomes accessible not only from the payment account tab, but also from the Payment Register.
The Payment Register is also accessible by clicking on the notebook icon on the top tool bar, or by clicking on Accounting, Accounts Receivable, Payment Maintenance, A/R Payment Register from the FrontDesk toolbar.
To learn more about the Payment Register, go to the A/R Payment Register section
The STATEMENT button allows to print the account statement for the current accounting period, a previous accounting period, or as a running statement across several accounting periods.
To print a current period statement, ensure you are in the current accounting period, and then click on the Statement button.
To print a prior period statement, or a running statement across multiple accounting periods, use the accounting period 'back' arrow to position yourself to the requested accounting period. When you click on the Statement button, you will receive a prompt asking if you want to print the displayed period, or a running statement from the displayed period to the current period. Answer the prompt as needed for your situation
This tab provides a place to post and share notes. You can use it to store reminder information specific to the current Third Party Sponsor or as a temporary location to hold some type of information you need for a short time (e.g. a telephone number for a call-back).
SchoolLeader supports the Cut & Paste feature of Windows. You can always cut and paste information into any window using the Edit menu options off the SchoolLeader Main Menu or by using keyboard; Ctrl-C to copy, Ctrl-X to cut, and Ctrl-V to paste.
Each note is summarized on a single line in the grid shown above. It displays:
the Date the note was originally posted
the Userid of the person who posted it
To add a note, or modify an existing note:
To add a note, click on the ADD/MODIFY button. Type in your note. There are no limits on the total length of the text.
To modify an existing note, click on the note, and then click on ADD/MODIFY. Type in any modifications that you have.
Only the original creator of the note can modify the note.
To delete a note, click on the note, and then click on the REMOVE button.
Only the original creator of the note can delete the note.
This button will print one or more notes for this sponsor. Printing notes can be useful if needed to collaborate with others, or as a paper reminder on one's desk.